There are so many great haunted house novels on the market it is tough work to both stand out from the pack and do something vaguely fresh. Although JW Ocker’s Twelve Nights at Rotter House tries its best, it failed to fire the imagination and to be blunt; just not enough happens over the course of the novel to get the juices flowing. It does, however, have a cool opening paragraph: 
 
“I had to get into the house. It was towering and dark, asymmetrical and multistoried. It was so dark that it made the starless void behind it look bright, like a flaw in the dark firmament, a ragged black piece excised from the perforated navy of the night sky.”

Felix Allsey is a travel writer whom has written some minor selling non-fiction books about real supernatural hauntings, but the problem is he does not really believe in ghosts which is a recurring theme throughout the story. Sadly, I quickly grew weary of this rather dull debunker as he mooched around the supposedly haunted house. He convinces the owner of the Rotterdam Mansion, Emilia Garza, to let him stay there for thirteen nights believing this story might hand him a bestseller and make the house internationally infamous in the same way the location in the ‘true’ Amityville story is. 

He had initially discovered the house when he spotted it being used in an obscure indie horror film and saw its potential for his next book.  When Felix approaches Emilia she reveals that she already had plans to turn the mansion into a haunted house attraction, however, its infamy is only locally known and the book which has the working title “13 Nights at Rotten House” could perhaps push it into ‘America’s most haunted’ lists making it a new tourist attraction. But notice there are only twelve nights in the title of the book, so expect the unexpected.

As haunted houses go the Rotterdam Mansion was uninspiring going and even though it was not a long book not much other than an odd thud happened in the first 150 pages. In the early stages old friend and fellow horror nut Thomas joins Felix, in their recent past they had a falling out and are only back in touch, an instance which is revisited and adds some tension to proceedings. Interestingly, Thomas is more inclined to believe in the supernatural which was a nice touch and together they dig into the history and the dodgy original owner Al Rotterdam, who was a furniture entrepreneur and a man with a voracious appetite for sex. Their movements are restricted slightly be the lack of electricity (they can’t watch horror films) as nobody has lived in the house for more than a decade. 

The problem with ghost house stories is that it is very easy to feel you have been here before and this very familiar tale of a guy spending time in a ‘haunted’ house has that precise feeling. Although it was atmospheric in parts, it lacked any kind of scares and comes up well short if you compare it to some of the recent competition on the market, for example; Scott Thomas’s Kill Creek, or the author’s new novel Violet, Andrew Cull’s stunning debut Remains or Richard Chizmar’s novella Widow’s Point, all leave this in the dust. At one point the owner of the house ironically says: “That’s been done before” and wonders whether the proposed book could the book make it the next Amityville? The answer is a resounding ‘no’ as the book is drawn out over twelve nights and by night nine night (around page 200) the pace and action continued to move at a snail’s pace.  

As both characters, Felix and Thomas, are horror buffs the novel is top-heavy with film references which for a while were entertaining, but eventually they dragged and detracted from the plot of Twelve Nights at Rotter House and were ultimately self-indulgent which killed tension. At one point the men find old dolls in the house and they then muse about all the creepy doll films they had seen or heard noises which remind them of something from an Algernon Blackwood story. On another occasion they start philosophizing about the Jersey Devil and have discussions on horror tropes, none of which added much to the plot, atmosphere or scare value. Throw in a predictable Ouija board scene, lots of boozing, abuse of Tylenol and you had the possibility of something potentially eye-catching, but it fizzled out to nothing with an underwhelming ending which missed the mark. 

Haunted house stories are a dime-a-dozen and there is nothing wrong with treading familiar territory if you are going to stamp your own vision on it and write something eye-catching. However, Twelve Nights at Rotter House missed that boat and left me underwhelmed. 

2/5

Tony Jones

I had an opportunity to read this book in the earlier stages of its development, for the chance to provide some input and I have to say that even then, I found a lot of originality and a great spark of creativity behind the central drive of the plot.
 
One hinge in particular that I was taken with was the technicality of the writing. You don’t hear me talking about him as much but one of my favorite authors from high school and even college was Michael Crichton, again back to Jurassic Park. But for as successful as that was (and that was my introduction to him), for me my interests went well beyond that book. I loved and appreciated how he was able to incorporate scientific and intellectual details into a story without making it feel forced, while keeping the plot engaging and captivating.

And he could have been getting his details completely wrong. But the point is taking a subject matter that might be dry and making it enjoyable to read.
 
This brings us back to Ghostland. And as with Jurassic Park, we are dealing with science and technology that does not exist. Still, Ralston approaches it head on in such fashion that it’s impossible to not take it seriously. He lends it a legitimacy that makes you forget that such things cannot really happen.
 
They can’t, right?

And if excitement is what you seek, excitement you shall have. The story kicks off with a creepy opening and leads you into a first act that you know is going to end badly. And like so many other tales of scientific notions gone wrong, the only real question is when and how that disaster will take place. Before long, all the people in this story who see themselves as being in control will learn the laughable flimsiness of what we call “control.”
 
What I find improved in this final version is the focus of the narrative. Where many other characters originally competed for the spotlight and attention, Ralston has drawn together a tight story around these two main characters. The book feels more like their story and not just a chain of events. The emotional weight has lent the tale a lot of power.
 
Because what lies at the heart of this, under the cover of a really cool supernatural thriller is a story of friendship and how the bonds of that relationship can be strained to the breaking point. Ralston does a superb job establishing the tragedy of this fractured friendship by drawing compelling characters on both sides of the equation. It’s a human story told with largely inhuman characters.
 
What will the future bring for Duncan Ralston in the wake of the tragedy that took place in Duck Falls? Will we see a continuation of the narrative after what should be considered a solid foundation for this universe? Is it possible that a long-lost Rex Garrote novel will finally see the light of day?
 
I don’t have the answer to those questions but as a fan of this work, I am looking forward to finding out. This is one of those projects which you can easily detect the investment of the author so it will be fun to see what more Duncan Ralston might have in store for us.
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